Gone
by Buttercup-chan
Summary: John x Cortana. Its "the 3rd" but edited. So now if you read it, instead of Grif, Simmons will hug you.


It'd been two weeks

It'd been not one, but two agonizingly long weeks

since he'd heard her

He supposed it was fair to say he was crazy, it may have been fair to say she wasn't real- only a few numbers and codes

but he didn't listen to any of the officers, Keys, or any other completely correct person who said this to him.

To him she was real, all of her was real. After a certain amount of time even a normal person would believe so. The voice, knowledgeable: her voice, soft, sophisticated. It had felt like an eternity together inside his helmet. Every minute having a third party between you and your thoughts, he forgot she wasn't really there.

Now, though, to him it was unbelievably sobering the fact that she had been gone nearly 14 days- only shy a few hours. The first week it had haunted his armor- stuck inside, trapped, a ghost. The faintness that appeared, whispering to him _don't make a girl a promise you can't keep_, trembling on the ground- her positions provocative. He could still hear her voice he could almost feel her. The days that followed the first week he heard her outside his helmet, he could see her- having to double take to get the real picture in front of his face- one without her.

Now, laying on his back in a base not of his outfit, he stared at the ceiling in front of him. If not for the one window it would have been invisible, covered in a thick sheet of shadow leaving only 2 parties in the room- him, and his thoughts.

Just as this crossed his mind, he heard her.

_Would you leave me?_

He missed her, his dear friend. The one that had chosen him above all the others. The one that had said _he has something the others don't_. She chose him, she'd entrusted him with her whole existence- if he'd gotten shot, if he'd taken just one misstep throughout this entire ugly war then she'd have suffered through it as well.

_Luck_, She'd said.

His eyes clenched shut, squeezing together in an attempt to rid his mind of her. Just thinking about her made the loneliness worse. Only having one voice talk to him, now, he seemed so very alone. None of these marines new what he felt like, sure he could tell them stories about the flood with excruciating detail, but none of them new what it was like to have one feel you with the tentacles that sprouted where its face used to be- to have one breathe down your throat before you blew it to pieces- or for it to latch onto your arm and infect you with its disease. His friend, though, she new. She'd lived through it all with him, been there during every agonizing second.

______________

As he jumped into Gravemind he couldn't help but think that it looked an awful lot like the inside of a stomach. He stepped carefully side by side with the Arbiter, inching further and further into the deep cavern. The yellowing, spongy ground squished under his feet and he cocked his gun. Just as the click was made, he heard it echo down the long isle followed by a loud moan belonging to one of the creatures inside.

The flood jumped around them, whipping them and shooting. It was all a blur to him, the movements of the battle so well drilled into him that his thoughts could travel elsewhere, his adrenaline governing his movements as apposed to his mind. Where then, at a time like this, does it travel?

To her.

Everything moved slowly, his vision blurring and his depth perception elongating. He tried to continue moving but the ground shook violently beneath him.

Or maybe it was just him.

She appeared in front of his eyes like that, shaky and blurry- moving slowly. _Don't listen to me Chief_ her voice trembled _I'm not the person I used to be_ she gasped and disappeared, his vision turning to normal. he could move again, his eyes turning to the flood with fire behind them. It was them. It was they who did this to his friend.

_____________

He panted, collecting his thoughts as his body started calming to a normal state and the Arbiter opened the door. They were both covered in filth and sick. after going through Gravemind as well as the large metallic rooms that followed, both had had ENOUGH of the flood and loyal Covenant army. He wiped the blood and guts from his visor, being able to see was always a good thing when in battle.

As the mechanical metal-plated door opened to the next room nothing happened. No enemies jumped at them, no corpses were strewn about the floor. The Arbiter stepped forward but he stepped ahead, motioning to stay back. His first step into the room was unsure, scoping for any signs of and enemy. Then out of the corner of his eye a small blue figure appeared.

He looked to it and found that it had ran around the corner. He stepped after it, realizing who it was that was leading him through the empty halls to the real her.

"Cortana..."

_John_

_Be careful. There's two of us in here now._


End file.
